Pay No Attention to That Man Behind The Curtain!
Every once in a great while someone accidentally tells the truth in Washington, and that person’s compatriots/handlers then spend the next few news cycles feverishly trying to stuff the cat back in the bag. So it’s hard to feel bad for Charlie Black, who made the simple mistake of speaking the truth on record.
Black, you’ll recall, recently told a reporter that another terrorist attack would materially help John McCain’s chances in the 2008 presidential election. About the only thing that could be said in Black’s defense is that he didn’t say he wished for the attack. The prospect of an attack is chilling enough, though, and the fact that some would see political gain where the rest of us would see a far more grisly aftermath speaks volumes.
But if it’s hard to feel sorry for Black, it’s harder to feel sorry for anyone caught off guard by his statement, and harder still to feel sorry for his aforementioned handlers. They, after all, appear poised to run this campaign the same as they ran the campaigns in 2002, 2004, and 2006, making it a referendum on the so-called “War On Terror”* and suggesting that the fabric of American society, to say nothing of your very life, depend on voting Republican.
On the other hand, that may be the one encouraging thing to draw from this incident. The thinking that terrorism is the GOP’s bread and butter may have worked in 2002, before the shock of 9/11 had worn off, and before the President drained his resources of good will as though they were a swamp. However, it didn’t work so well in 2004, and it failed miserably in 2006.
In the former instance, Bush acolytes crowed in the aftermath of the election that it had been a “referendum on the War On Terror.” Had they looked at the map afterward, they might not have proclaimed that so loudly. The places most likely to be struck by another attack, y’see, were shaded deep blue. Places like Montana, who would seem to view blue-state America as… well, something other than American, and who, perhaps not so incidentally, haven’t topped a target list since the Soviet era, were the ones likely to vote GOP. The ‘06 elections saw similar tactics deployed, but with the much different result that the Republicans were collectively beaten like the New York Mets.
Make no mistake, national security is a legitimate issue, and one that ought to be debated vigorously. But to act as though our citizens’ security is just one of several pawns on some political chessboard is to demean them, and to further demean an already significantly degraded political discourse. But then, while the thinking on the GOP side isn’t likely to be swayed much by the Black firestorm, it’s a safe bet that they’ll likely choose their words more carefully going forward.
*just an aside: if they’re really serious about this War On Terror business, they’d have done something about the monsters under the bed. Or the Toilet Kraken. Just saying.
Tags: 2008 election, Charlie Black, John McCain